boring blah

Thursday:

The bulk of the day was spent having a major, annual kitchen clean up in the afternoon. Proudly organised by mom, dutifully executed by Jean and I. We spent almost 3 hours scrubbing the floor and cleaning the wall. The wall can be cleaned cus it's the tile type. It was quite dusty and mom would have screamed if she saw the amount of dust we picked up. Her cloth changed from a light grey to spots of dark grey.

We used the hose from the yard toilet to spray the water in the kitchen. But the hose is quite short so only part of the kitchen can be reached. Apart from that, we had obstacles such as the fridge and the cupboard doors to avoid (cus it's partially fake wood, so we cant wet it too much). I had to keep jumping up and down to reach the top of the wall. I realised that as the years go by, I'm able to reach more and more parts of the kitchen wall.

Then while I was busy cleaning the wall, jean was just done scrubbing the section of floor and was preparing to wash away the soap by splashing a pail of water. Then she suddenly said, "wave coming". I didn't have much time to react but managed to dodge enough to get my pants all wet. Jean should have said something like tsunami. At the end of 3 hours, I think the kitchen was cleaner much cleaner than us.

Then in the evening, Jean went to meet her new piano teacher. Her first lesson is next year. My mom and her were given a tutorial on how to choose a piano. I think we'll be going for a Yamaha or Kawaii one, but not a junior type cus it will die after grade 5. The piano teacher didn't really seem to support steinway (not sure, stein-something) and sons because the one she had spoilt fast. The keys were like popping up or down. The teacher is very structured. It's pay by month, regardless of whether you miss the lesson or not. That's a great difference compared to violin, where just pay as you go. Well, I suppose it's because she's a full time piano teacher, so cannot afford to entertain "cannot make it" statements. My violin teacher and I take turns saying we're not free, have something in school/have a concert or recording etc. So maybe that's the bright side of a full time performing teacher.

Friday:

Today, there was sectionals. The bassists and cellists called off their sectional. I had a hard time calling practically the whole ensemble. And not forgetting that I had to retrace my steps when it was revealed that some sectionals were called off. Only 4 people people came today, not including joycelyn, ck and me. The viola section is getting really powerful. I think by SYF, they'll overtake violin 2 standard. But it's really quite a happy occasion when you hear something nice coming out of the instruments. There's suddenly a sense of hope. Well, from the point of view of a section leader..

I spent part of the afternoon rehearsing worship with Jean for tomorrow. Jean is the one playing the piano, of course. I can't even manage twinkle twinkle little star properly. If only a violin were more worship user-friendly, like a piano or guitar. A hypothesis, it may not be accurate: people with less formal music training and extreme formal music training (yes, an ax2 + bx + c curve again) are able to play for congregation better, since it mostly involves improvising on chords (oh no why does this seem like baroque figured bass). There may be less technical skill required but there's the special sense of freedom and creativity, which makes what popular songs today sound like.

Oh wow. jy is online.

Then for the other part of the afternoon, I did violin practice. I got my first finger cut while practicing the cadenza. There's the activate-all-the-fingers-you-have string crossing thing at the last 3 lines. Cus the first finger usually has to press quite hard on the G-string (the fattest one) for the bass note, so I had to reach out for the notes. I used the not-so-tip of my finger to press and cus that part wasn't hardened that much yet (string players usually have hard left finger tips), the skin gave way and so it got cut. I only realised a while after practice cus I was wondering why my finger felt like something was biting it. Now I really hesitate doing violin practice tomorrow.